A commercial telecommunications network operated by a service provider typically supports voice and/or data communications between various customer locations served by the network. An overall communications system may be subdivided into an access network and a core network, which may or may not be owned and operated by different service providers. Generally, customer devices communicatively couple to the access network which, in turn, connects to the core network. The access network includes what many people refer to as “the last mile,” that is, the connectivity from a customer location, such as an office building, to a point where a service provider has significant facilities, such as a metro hub or a “service edge” at the periphery of the core network. In contrast to the access network, the core network usually provides transport of large aggregate flows over long distances and handles the selective routing of each customer's voice and data traffic to other locations served by the network.
The access network generally comprises a series of switches, aggregators, multiplexers, demultiplexers, routers, hubs, and the like which provide connectivity between the customer's equipment and the core network. In a complicated network architecture involving a large number and variety of equipment and a number of possible points of failure, it is helpful to a service provider to be able to quickly and efficiently isolate problems or failures in the network. Problems may include a failed piece of equipment, a cut cable, or the like. Many systems are currently employed by existing service providers to provide alarms or warnings when a piece of equipment fails or is suffering degraded performance and may be about to fail. The existing systems are generally focused on monitoring the operational status of the network equipment, such as the switches, aggregators, multiplexors, demultiplexors, routers, amplifiers, and the like located in the service provider's facilities or collocated at facilities operated by a telephone company. These systems, however, fail to provide a means to diagnose or troubleshoot problems and monitor performance of customer premise equipment.
For example, a communications link between a particular piece of customer premise equipment and an access device may be causing failures within the network. When a customer suffers interrupted or poor service and contacts then service provider to report the problem, the service provider may be able to verify the working condition of the access network and core network. Beyond that, the service provider must frequently dispatch service personnel to go to the customer's site to perform tests and troubleshoot the problem. This can be an expensive and time-consuming process.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for troubleshooting problems with customer premise equipment and the communications links between the customer premise equipment and the access network. In addition, there is a need for a system and method for gathering information from, and performing tests and other functions on, customer premise equipment.